


Wonderfully ordinary life

by halloa_what_is_this



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Gen, Growing Old Together, Retirement, Retirementlock, Sherlock grows vegetables, They care for each other so much, Varicose veins and wrinkled hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halloa_what_is_this/pseuds/halloa_what_is_this
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extraordinary is just a bit more ordinary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wonderfully ordinary life

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by the wonderful [Emily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cheekbonesofbenny)

Sherlock comes back in June, exactly three years after he has jumped, like he has planned to return on the anniversary of his death and make the worst day of John’s life the happiest one. John has to admit it is so far the best thing that has ever happened to him, but only after he has punched the lights out of Sherlock and broken a finger in the process.

John gets married in September, in the scorching heat of early autumn with Sherlock as his best man. A little under three months since he has come back to John’s life, Sherlock stands in the background watching John dance with Mary in the cooling evening in the garden they have reserved for the occasion. Sherlock drinks champagne and wonders.

Mary dies in January, nowhere near their anniversary, as if she has wanted to give John the one day of the year to remember how happy he was and another one to remember how he almost drowned in his own tears squeezing his wife’s hand after life had already left her. They have been married for twenty years when brain tumour takes Mary and John moves back to Baker Street with Sherlock because he cannot stand the suddenly quiet flat on Montague Street and the stilling emptiness every time he opens the door.

In December, Mary asks Sherlock to come and see her, an unexpected invitation Sherlock does not turn down, nor does he refuse Mary’s dying wish. She has lost almost everything else but she can still remember John and Sherlock, the unity they formed before John and Mary even existed, even if it is just a story told to her. She remembers the unity they have continued to be during the 20 years of John’s marriage. She has spasms and can barely use her left side ( _Emotions_ , thinks Sherlock, _have broken her down_ , wonders which side of him will go first.) and she still swears to all gods and the folk downstairs that she will come back and kill Sherlock herself if he ever abandons John. (And again Sherlock thinks of broken emotions.)

So Sherlock promises, and in early February, five years after Mary has passed, when it is looking a lot like it might be time for them to start thinking about something else than running for their lives in London, a case takes them to Sussex and on a chance they stumble on something neither of them could ever have thought they could want.

They sign the papers a week later, two months after that the house is in a habitable condition and they have moved most of their belongings from Baker Street to their new address. The place needs a name of course and Sherlock first suggests Fort Something-Something, John thinks Baker Street would be a nice continuity, and when they cannot come to an agreement they leave it to brew and simply start to call the place Home.

 

*

 

The first spring in the new house is rough. The pipes leak and have to be replaced, the chimney smokes and has to be swept (three times) before they can build a fire to protect them from the draft, Sherlock accidentally drops a bowling ball through floorboards in the sitting room and a week later John falls through a different hole in a different part of the room. So they tear down the floor and hire a man to nail the new boards in place.

While he is at it, the man also fixes the squeaky hinges, replaces several window glasses, builds a new dining room table and just in case he also climbs on the roof to check the insulation and drainpipes (though it’s not part of his job description, he says). Both are still in good shape, so he only leaves with a click of his toolbox and instructions to wash the tiles and repair the possible damage on the roof next summer.

Wandering among the dripping pipes and coughing chimney John and Sherlock try to get used to the new aspect of silence around them, wake up every night to floorboards creaking on their own and mice running around behind the wallpaper. Sometimes in the evenings they hear a cuckoo calling and when John finds an old book about birds from the boxes the previous occupant has left behind, he goes to town and buys binoculars and sits hours at a time in the mornings at the biggest window from which he can see the forest and inspect the bird population of Sussex.

Slowly, so slowly spring comes to an end and summer rolls around the corner with hot weather, swarms of midges and swaying green grass they do not have the heart to cut just yet but take out the garden chairs and sit in their very own jungle.

 

*

 

He never tells John, but the first summer they spend together in Sussex is the happiest in Sherlock’s life. The weather is no better or worse than during any other summer: they get their fair share of scorching sun and droning rain storms (even thunder, which Sherlock finds fascinating and would gladly experiment with in order to see whether they could get their electricity from the power of nature instead of the power of the station that pesters them with bills every month Sherlock swears cannot be right. John ends his dreams of lightning conductors the minute he hears what Sherlock needs copper wire for and tells him to stop wasting electricity by leaving the fridge door open and all the lights on if he is so worried about the bills.) and once an aphid population destroys all Sherlock’s birch saplings for which he gets bloody revenge by setting an army of ladybirds on the pests, a war he follows with great interest.

It is the happiest summer because for the first time in over 20 years, he feels like he has John back to where he belongs, mentally and physically. He is not mourning Mary anymore but looks healthier, has less nightmares and is more relaxed every morning and ready for action. Which nowadays is more long walks rather than running, or plucking out weeds rather than the criminal population of London, but it keeps him occupied and he seems to be actually enjoying himself.

Sherlock has catalogued all the changes and follows John’s steps everywhere he goes. The first time John comes down for breakfast without limping, Sherlock’s heart feels like it will burst out of his chest and he has to bury his nose into the newspaper to steady his breathing. That night he stands outside John’s bedroom door and listens to the steady sound of dreams without nightmares. He thinks it is the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

He feels even better when John does not wake up to the looming presence of his flatmate behind his door or even to the creaking of the stairs. Perhaps he should blame it on the retirement, but John’s military instincts have gotten rusty and Sherlock is only glad that John can now sleep throughout the night without nightmares about surprise attacks from criminals.

So he stops tormenting his violin after 11 pm and even though he knows John cannot hear him now, he tiptoes around the house when he himself cannot sleep, only to climb upstairs dodging every creaky step and to press his ear on John’s door to listen to that blessed breathing.

The summer starts in early May when John goes to the market and buys books of gardening, bags of earth, a shovel and a rake, seeds, saplings and bright green watering can. He sets to work on the small patch in the back yard that gets most sun during the day and starts turning the abandoned garden into rows of peas, onions, tomatoes and herbs. The garden grows and grows, soon there are flowers ( _Marigolds and cornflowers_ , says John plucking small meadow buttercups around his precious seedlings that Sherlock can’t tell apart from the devious weeds) and sooner rather than later Sherlock starts to take part in the garden, his birch trees growing fine without him he begins to help John with the watering and carries cans of water for the yellow and blue field, thins out the herbs and learns from Mrs Hudson, who arrives one day with a large sunhat on her head, how to dry them and what to use them for.

The first winter Sherlock spends in the kitchen, boiling John teas and soups, and on Christmas Day he stuffs the small turkey with the herbs he has reserved just for the occasion.

 

*

 

“A sauna?”

“Yes,” says the pile of blankets under which Sherlock has buried himself to escape the freezing cold of the house. They still do not have heating and the only warmth comes from the fireplace, and so they spend every night in front of it with all the blankets they can find and with several woollen jumpers on them. Of course Sherlock would be thinking about anything warm behind the clattering of his teeth.

“What do you know of saunas?”

“Nothing, except that they keep you warm,” Sherlock’s voice is muffled by the layers of wool and fringes but John can still hear the irritation. He is lucky the annoyance is not directed at him this time but towards the on-going winter that has frozen even Sherlock Holmes solid.

“And who would build it?” John asks his tea mug.

“We will hire someone. Honestly, John, they’re terrific. We had one when I was ---“

He swallows audibly, and John knows what he is thinking.

“It’s been 25 years, Sherlock. You should be able to talk about it already.”

The blankets shuffle restlessly for a while, still, and Sherlock’s hand holds out a photo. There is Sherlock who looks about 25 years younger but still carries the same expression he does now (and did the first time John saw him) and next to him smiles a grey man who looks healthy and alive in the picture but must be long gone by now. John can see the paralysis that has damaged the right side of the man’s face so that his smile looks crooked.

“Mycroft’s friend,” says the pile of moving wool again. “His old colleague from MI6 who retired a few years earlier to Southern Finland to live on fish and fresh air. There were lots of both, he lived by a lake and had a small sauna on his back yard. It was actually quite pleasant to sit in the warmth and then take a swim in the lake.”

“And you’ve been carrying the photo around all these years?” John asks.

A tuff of hair and Sherlock’s nose emerge.

“I liked him. I usually keep memories of people I like. Otherwise I would have deleted him.”

“You don’t like Mycroft, not in the traditional sense at least. You haven’t deleted him.”

“Mycroft is useful. It would be imbecilic to delete him.”

John returns the photo under the blankets and he can hear Sherlock shuffling with what must be his wallet he has stored somewhere close by.

“I had your picture with me when I was away. Still do.”

John swallows the burst of happiness with the remains of his tea.

“You should probably update that one.”

So they get a sauna and Sherlock teaches John how to use the stove (“Sherlock, I was in the army. I know how to make a bloody fire!”), and the latter has to admit that the whole thing was one of Sherlock’s better ideas. After a while of getting used to it, they can actually spend hours just enjoying the warmth, the crackling of logs in the stove, the easing of each other’s breaths as their old joints sigh contently.

In the summer, says Sherlock, they can swim in the river when they want to cool off. He has suggested rolling around in the snow, but his persuasions have not convinced John of the fabulousness of making snow angels naked.

So when summer finally arrives, they swim in the river, fish from the river, make boat trips from one end of the river to the other, from one shore to the next. Every night they sit outside in their garden with the warm summer around them, the second one in the new place and everything is in full bloom now that they have spent one summer preparing everything, cutting down trees to get rid of the midges and working with the lawnmower in search of a balance between quagmire and a functioning garden. The steps of the porch serve as a place for evening tea and some cakes Molly has brought with her from London on her latest visit with her husband.

Sherlock is quiet, clearly lost in memories.

“Have you heard from him after you left?” John asks.

“Mycroft called a few months after I came back. The neighbours found him dead in his bed. But you probably guessed he didn’t have long after I showed you the photo.”

John nods, wondering how long both of them still have before time takes its toll on them.

 

*

 

John actually wears a fishing hat when they take the boat on an outing across the river and see if they can catch anything. Sherlock hates the hat, tells John so every chance he gets. He himself has not found a hat to go with his urban looks (he still likes to wear suits wherever he goes, even fishing) and so the first time they go out on the boat and stay for a while, enough for the sun to shine mercilessly on Sherlock’s bare head, enough for John to realise Sherlock has not drunk anything the whole time they have been out there, he gets a sunstroke and spends the next day in the darkness of his bedroom, throwing up and feverish.

“I still hate your hat,” Sherlock gasps at John standing at the door with a cold wet towel in his hands.

The next morning, Sherlock wobbles up to the attic in search of possible left-over line to fix the fishing rod he broke on the trip in the excitement of catching the first fish of his life. Rummaging around in the trunks and boxes left by the previous occupants, he comes across a large straw hat that has a single felt flower still attached to it.

A woman’s hat.

He goes to show John.

He does not mind that it takes John hours to stop laughing, or that he has to beat him on the back when he inhales the cup of tea he has been drinking when Sherlock emerges from the attic with the hat on his head. He is too happy to hear John laugh like that.

 

*

 

“No.”

“Sherlock…”

“No.”

“---“

“No.”

“You can’t fight age.”

"I’m not fighting anything. My vision is fine.”

“I can see you squinting right now. And since I don’t have to argue about everything and already have bought my pair, I am actually honestly able to say that. You, however, need glasses!”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“And you are going to see the optician today. I already called them and made an appointment. I’m sure you will look very smart ---“ _SMACK!_

“Next time it will be something hard.”

“Mm, I must say, you have outdone yourself with the strawberry jam this time. Not too sweet. I’m glad. Too much sugar is bad for you.”

“I’m warning you. I’m holding a pot of cold porridge and no matter what you say I can still see your abnormally large forehead. You’ve already seen I can hit you.”

 

*

 

There comes a winter when the psychosomatic pain in John’s left thigh finally gives way to real pain when his hip collides with the frozen pavement outside the window of the village butcher. Sherlock swears a blue streak at everything and everyone he can come up with in the minutes it takes for the ambulance to arrive and drive them to the nearest hospital. The blasphemies keep on dropping the next morning when John’s diagnosis arrives and the doctor begins to speak about hip replacements, recovery times, about pain, pain and more pain.

“It’s my fault,” Sherlock mutters after the flippity-flop and squish-squish of the shoes of the doctor and two nurses have disappeared through the door. While John has been a model patient despite the saying involving doctors on the wrong end of the hospital bed, it had taken more hospital staff to keep Sherlock steady the night before than it had been to calm John down before the pain medication had kicked in. Sherlock had almost bitten the doctor in the shins when they were trying to remove him from John’s side, and now she was armed with two nurses who had the air of professional wrestlers rather than healers every time she stepped into John’s room.

“How on earth is it your fault?” John asks, trying to bat Sherlock’s hand away from rearranging his bed covers after the nurse has just made such a shockingly inferior job of it, says the self-proclaimed know-it-all.

“I should have caught you,” answers Sherlock and keeps on making the bed, almost pushing John over the other side. “I should have reacted faster. I could have caught you, your arm or your belt or your ear, damn it!”

The thin-worn sheet gives way under Sherlock’s fingers.

John pats Sherlock’s hand, reassuringly now.

“You are not responsible of chance. It could have just as well been you and I couldn’t have caught you either. It happened too fast.”

“If it had been me, it wouldn’t be as bad.”

“It would probably be worse, since you would have blamed it all on me and the hospital and probably on Mycroft. If you want to blame someone, blame the weather.”

From the sparks in Sherlock’s eyes John can tell he is going through every form of deity and superstitious goblin in control of ice and snow and if he had not been glued to the chair next to John’s hospital bed, he probably would have been standing in front of the butcher’s melting the snow with his glare.

Physical therapy takes its time, and Sherlock stays with John all the way through it, testing the nerves of everyone having anything to do with getting John’s hip back into function. When they are through with the last hour of physical therapy and Sherlock has once again almost made one of the young nurse trainees cry and John has once again made her smile by scolding Sherlock, they are given detailed instructions for taking care of the new hip at home with stretches and slow walks.

“To start with,” says the doctor who still keeps her distance from Sherlock. “After the first check-up, if I think you’re able, you can start doing more demanding exercises. But right now I don’t want you to overstress yourself.”

So Sherlock stops running and their regular pace slows down to half what it used to be. Now it takes them almost an hour to walk the mile’s journey to the village. Soon Sherlock does not even remember why he used to be in such a hurry. He sees more now, catalogues every person and every plant they come across and tells John new facts about them so that he could forget the ache on his left side until they get to the village pharmacy and can stop to sit on the bench in the sunshine.

And of course, John moves downstairs from his bedroom on the second floor he has inhabited for years. Sherlock readily vacates his bedroom on the ground floor and moves his belongings upstairs. Secretly they both start hoping that something will happen to Sherlock’s hip or leg as well so that they could use the second bedroom only as a guest room and storage space and share the large bed downstairs. Perhaps it is the age talking, but they have both started to feel cold at night, even when the mercury never drops under 20 degrees after 10 pm and they have to carry two cans of water for each flower bed every day.

The herbs and peas bloom, ripen and are made into teas and soups like every year. Sherlock wanders around the garden that has taken up almost all the back yard after years of planting and expanding, wearing his straw hat while John sits in the shade of the porch and sips lemonade.

 

*

 

“The ceiling is leaking,” says Sherlock the moment John totters out of his room and almost trips on the bucket Sherlock has placed under the dripping of autumn rain that has found its way into their sitting room.

John glares at the water stain that has no business being on their ceiling.

“Did we do anything to fix the roof this summer?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the roof. I think a window is open in the attic and it’s leaking through.”

“And you thought everything would be fixed with a bucket and didn’t think to climb upstairs to check whether the window actually is open?”

Sherlock moves uncomfortably in his chair.

“I already called the company we used last time with the roof. We need to fix the ceiling anyway so they can see if anything is actually leaking in the attic.”

It looks like he cannot settle down comfortably. John watches him squirm, slight grunts he is obviously trying to suppress slipping from his throat. He sees Sherlock is in pain but is too proud to say anything about it. He has not gone up to check the attic because he can barely sit without moaning.

John glances at the sofa. The quilt is on the opposite side than it was last night when he went to bed, obviously folded away in a rush. Sherlock has not gone to bed upstairs but slept on the sofa, waking only moments before John and trying to cover his tracks in a hurry.

“Is it your back?” he asks.

Sherlock gets up from the chair, striving to look healthy and able, failing miserably when his feet almost fold underneath him when he tries to move to the kitchen faster than his body obviously is able to. John brushes his fingers against his palm, takes a firm hold of his thumb as tears are dried on the sleeves of a dressing gown and bony fingers squeeze a wrinkly hand into an iron grip.

 

*

 

“You do realise how ridiculously ordinary we have become?”

“I try not to think about it.”

An earthworm is flung across a shoulder and hits John in the ear.

“Ordinary, Sherlock. We have become old people!”

"I know.”

This time it is just an abnormally large chunk of grass and earth and this time John dodges. So the lump lands in the potato patch.

“You’re not even trying. Here.”

The red bucket is placed next to Sherlock’s crouched form, filled only halfway with everything Sherlock thinks should not be growing among the green peas on their menu today. The rest is strewn among the potatoes and herbs.

“And you are happy with that?”

“I could have hit the thing just fine. I was practising my aim.”

“That’s not what I meant, Sherlock.”

Sherlock starts on the peas themselves, choosing only the best and plucking each one expertly. There is not going to be a lot of soup from the few peas he decides are worthy but there are only two of them to eat it anyway.

 

*

 

John finds Sherlock standing in the middle of the potato patch, inspecting his cultivation with a rake in his hand.

“Here you are, Gandalf,” says John and places the tattered straw hat on Sherlock’s silvery curls. “Now you have both the cane and the hat to go with your wizardly look.”

Sherlock mutters a thank you, adjusts the hat and takes his glasses from the pocket of his dressing gown. He inspects John through them.

“Think we could have some of those for dinner today?” John asks, his gaze wondering around the patch.

“Still too early,” answers Sherlock.

 

*

 

They wake up holding each other’s hands. John cracks his eyes open to find Sherlock’s sleep bleary eyes inspecting him with a drowsy look. Deep breath of morning air scented with the aroma of garden drying after a heavy rain makes his head buzz with happiness.

“You drool,” says Sherlock.

“You snore,” answers John into his pillow.

“You talk in your sleep.”

“You fart in your sleep,” states John and pushes his feet closer to the cold toes of Sherlock’s freezing feet that cannot keep warm anymore even with thick woollen socks on them.

“You say you love me.”

**Author's Note:**

> [johix](http://johix.tumblr.com/) made me a commission of beautiful [fanart](http://johix.tumblr.com/post/98981946805/) based on this


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